Hired Killer Archives - Sean Kelly On Movies

Keanu Reeves stars as the title character in this action revenge thriller. John Wick (Reeves) is a retired assassin, who has been out of the life for many years. Shortly after the death of his wife, things hit rock bottom for Wick when Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen), son of Wick’s old boss Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), steals his car and kills his dog. With nothing left to lose, Wick re-enters the business to get revenge on those who wronged him. John Wick is the typical revenge story of about a man who fought hard to leave the life of an assassin, only to be forced back into it. At the start of the film John Wick is an assassin of mythic proportions, who was nicknamed Baba Yaga (or The Boogeyman) by his boss Viggo. He is quite simply, not a man that should be messed with. Keanu Reeves has reached the point of his career, where he is pretty much free to do whatever he wants and last year saw him make his directorial debut with Man of Tai Chi, as well as appearing in the samurai film 47 Ronan. Other than those passion projects, I don’t think Keanu Reeves has done a straight forward action film for quite a while, which makes John Wick a breath of fresh air somewhat. John Wick can somewhat jokingly be called the dog lovers action film, since Wick goes on this path of rampage as revenge for the death of his dog, which was a final gift from Wick’s wife before his died. However, the film also introduces a society of assassins, who all gather at a safe haven called the Continential Hotel, which is run by Winston (Ian McShane). Viggo puts a price on John Wick’s head, which makes him a target on some of these other assassins, including Ms. Perkins (Adrianne Palicki) and even Wick’s mentor Marcus (Willem Dafoe). John Wick is ultimately a pretty fun film to watch, with some well done action set pieces. The film is the type of violent action film that doesn’t get made too often anymore and it’s pretty enjoyable watching Keanu Reeves in action, taking out rooms full of bad guys. In fact, I probably wouldn’t be against seeing some further adventures of John Wick, which continues to develop the society of assassins that he belongs to. Overall, John Wick shows that you should never mess with someone’s dog.8 | LIKED IT